Position Paper – Part Three

Name: Emmanuel Ortiz, David Duran


V. We interviewed individuals to see what their response would be to our plan. Their responses are as follows.

We asked them "What do you think if the Fourteenth Amendment was reformed to state "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States if one or both parents are legal citizens"?
Our first response we got from William Brown thinks that the Fourteenth Amendment should be reformed but he thinks "Both parents of the child should have to be United States citizens in order for the child to be a U.S. citizen, instead of just one parent. He thinks that this would be better because then neither of the parents would be here illegally." (Brown, William. Interviewed by Alyssa E. Brown. February 18, 2011.) Although this person supports our plan, he believes it should be more strict. We chose to respectfully disagree because we believe that if we made our plan that strict, we may not get the support we want
Then the second response went along with our plan and supported every detail. She agrees with the suggested reformed version of the Fourteenth Amendment. She thinks it is fair because then the child would be able to stay in the United States because he/she has at least one parent who is a legal citizen so they would be able to live here legally. (Brown, Kathleen. Interviewed by Alyssa E. Brown. February 20, 2011.)
The Third response agrees with our plan and gives a strong point. She says "It sounds good to me. Why should your children benefit from your illegal actions? I don't care about the financial aspect because it should never really get to that point. If you're breaking the law, you shouldn't get benefits from breaking that law." (Hosticka, Allen. Interviewed by Alexis C. Hosticka. February 17, 2011.)
Then the last person reviewed disagreed with our plan. She said "I don't think that it is fair to the children because it is not their decision to be 'illegally born' in the U.S. We have to think about the kids not just paying for stuff." (Svee, Cheryl. Interviewed by Alexis C. Hosticka. February 21, 2011.) Our last responder makes a good point, children don't have the decision. That is why we are suggesting to allow one citizenship as long as one parent is a U.S. citizen.


VI. Our answers, based on our research, to their objections and concerns are:
To keep the statement we want. Since most of the responses agreed to our statement we figured "majority rules." One response wanted it to be stricter than what we had and anouther totally disagreed. Between both there responses, the statement we originally had is much like a happy median between their objections and concerns and so there may be a better chance to get the support we need to all to pass this reform.